At the 2012 Television Critics Association, the judges discussed the success of American Idol in comparison to its competing shows, The Voice and The X Factor. FremantleMedia North America CEO Cecile Frot-Coutaz also chimed in.

“American Idol is the gold standard,” Fox Alternative Programming head Mike Darnell declared. “It’s a phenomenon. What we’re experiencing right now is a wave, but we’ve had several over the last ten years and this show has stood up extraordinarily tall. Let’s not forget that last year we all sat here and a lot of the scrutiny was suspicious that we couldn’t come back with this type of a show and it came roaring back. This is the show the audience loves.”

American Idol’s first winner, Kelly Clarkson, was just announced as an adviser in the upcoming season of The Voice. Darnell commented, “We’re not hiring anyone from The Voice to be on our show.”

Executive producer Ken Warwick added, ”No other series over the years has produced anything like the number of stars that we have. To be honest, [X Factor UK winner] Leona Lewis was a kind of one-of-a-half-hit star for 10 minutes, but there’s no Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Katharine McPhee, they’re really stars.”

Randy Jackson shared his opinion on the NBC show. “The winner of The Voice, as I will remind you, was an artist who had a deal on Capitol for many years — a failed contract over there, so for that show it was almost like second chance people, it wasn’t like some new artist. It’s a different thing.”

Jackson also commented on Idol’s former judges, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell, on The X Factor: “They started this whole Idol tradition with us. I think that Idol is still the best TV show of its kind, we’re the original and we invented this game that everybody’s copying. So I think Simon has done well with his show, probably not as well as he expected, but we wish him well.”

Darnell also told THR, “We’re not [worried about The Voice]… You have to have a response to these questions and the response is competitive. We’re having fun. I wouldn’t call it touchy, I’d call it healthy competition.”

Added Jackson: “We will definitely never ever rip off Star Trek like The Voice did with spinning chairs.”

What do you think of American Idol’s harsh attitude? Is it just fun, or is the show scared of their new competitors?